Helen Chaia Shapira

Testimony of Helen Chaya (Altman) Shapira, born in Slatina, Czechoslovakia, 1926, regarding her experiences in Budapest, using a false idenity, under the protection of Raoul Wallenberg and Lichtenwoerth Large traditional Zionist family; attends a public Czechoslovakian school; member of Beitar youth movement. Re-annexation to Hungary, 1939; escape of the family to her brother in Budapest; draft of her brother to forced labor, 1942; escape and deportation of three siblings to Auschwitz where they perished; escape using a false identity and work as a seamstress; receives a protective passport from Raoul Wallenberg; deportation, October 1944; transfer on a march by the Hungarian Army; transfer under the command of the German Army to the Austrian border; transfer to Lichtenwoerth; camp life including labor clearing snow; escape from the camp with a female prisoner to look for food; return to the camp and punished with 25 lashes; liberation by the Red Army, 1945. Return to Budapest; aliya to Israel, 1949; starts a family.